Strikes Killed Militant Chief in Somalia, U.S. Reports

NEWPORT, Wales — After four days of monitoring cellphone traffic, questioning Somali officials on the ground and poring over reports from both American and British intelligence agencies, the Pentagon on Friday announced that American airstrikes against the Shabab, the Qaeda-linked militant network in Somalia, had succeeded in killing the group’s leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, one of the most wanted men in Africa.

“We have confirmed that Ahmed Godane, the co-founder of Al Shabab, has been killed,” the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a statement. He called the death of Mr. Godane “a major symbolic and operational loss” to the Shabab.

Speaking at a news conference after the NATO summit meeting here, President Obama drew a direct link between the killing of Mr. Godane, who turned an obscure local militant group into one of the most fearsome Qaeda franchises in the world, and Mr. Obama’s plans for the leaders of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The president vowed to hunt down ISIS leaders “the same way” the United States had found Mr. Godane.

Military officials had waited several days to confirm that Mr. Godane was killed in one of the two strikes — on an encampment and on a vehicle south of Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The strikes were carried out by Special Operations forces using both manned and unmanned aircraft, and they were undertaken, Pentagon officials said, based on intelligence that Mr. Godane was at the encampment.

The warplanes dropped Hellfire missiles and precision bombs on the encampment, and Pentagon officials said they believed everyone there was killed. But initially they were not sure that Mr. Godane had been present, and were wary of declaring victory only to have him emerge later, alive. Pentagon and intelligence officials have since been monitoring cellphone conversations and other intelligence to verify his death.

There was a debate, administration officials said, among intelligence and defense officials, both in the United States and Britain, over the evidence that Mr. Godane was dead. Administration officials said that they wrestled with conflicting assessments. “The bar for proof of death went way up,” one American official said, who spoke anonymously so as to discuss internal matters openly.

A senior defense official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said: “Everybody understood how important it was to get this right, especially given who he was. This was about being careful and deliberate.”

Obama administration officials appeared eager to use the killing of Mr. Godane as a direct warning to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and several officials pointedly echoed the president’s words linking the strikes to how the United States planned to treat extremist groups in general.

“Even as this is an important step forward in the fight against Al Shabab, the United States will continue to use the tools at our disposal — financial, diplomatic, intelligence and military — to address the threat that Al Shabab and other terrorist groups pose to the United States and the American people,” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said.

Gen. Carter F. Ham, the retired head of the United States military’s Africa Command, said of Mr. Godane’s death, “The effect will be positive, but not decisive.”

“He has proven over the years to be an elusive figure, but one who has galvanized some elements within Al Shabab,” General Ham said. “His death will remove an effective terrorist leader from Al Shabab’s ranks, but it will not cause Al Shabab to suddenly crumble or, probably, to significantly alter course.”

Ken Menkhaus, a professor of political science at Davidson College, noted that Al Shabab had lost a leader before in an American airstrike but still continued as an organization.

“In 2008, Al Shabab’s leader, Aden Hashi Ayro, was killed by a U.S. missile strike, but that only led to Godane’s ascent to leadership,” he said. “If a bunch of Godane’s lieutenants were also killed in this strike, the likelihood increases that Shabab could fall into disarray, at least temporarily.” An American official said there had been strong intelligence indicating that several senior Shabab leaders, including Mr. Godane, had been meeting at a location targeted by American commandos.

At the height of its power, the Shabab, under Mr. Godane’s leadership, controlled more territory than just about any other Qaeda offshoot.

Mr. Godane, thought to be around 40 years old, had been one of the most wanted figures in Africa, widely believed to have orchestrated countless attacks on civilians, including the massacre of dozens of shoppers at a mall in Nairobi, Kenya, last year. He presided over a reign of fear and violence inside Somalia for several years, organizing the stoning of teenage girls and crude public amputations, all part of an effort to return Somalia to the Shabab’s vision of strict Islamic rule.

During Somalia’s famine in 2011, when more than 250,000 people died, Mr. Godane gave orders to block food supplies from reaching starving people. His fighters even diverted rivers from desperate farmers. Mr. Godane has also taken the Shabab’s violence across Somalia’s borders by organizing suicide attacks in Kenya and Uganda.

Mr. Godane was one of a number of terrorism suspects whom the military has standing orders to strike if the opportunity presents itself, administration officials said.

Analysts cautioned that the Shabab’s remaining leaders might retaliate, and said that the first to feel that retaliation might be Kenya, the scene of previous Shabab attacks. Another big question, they said, is whether the Shabab, now that Mr. Godane is gone, will be more willing to allow unimpeded international humanitarian access to areas of southern Somalia that are facing rising famine conditions.

In 2011, when Mr. Godane gave orders to block Western humanitarian agencies delivering aid, it caused a split within the Shabab.